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" The very fact that Barack Obama - an African-American - was twice elected to the presidency will always be the lead line in that hard-to-meld, gold-plated paragraph. "

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" It is a long revisionist road up from the bottom for George W. Bush. He is ranked toward the bottom rung of presidents. "

Douglas Brinkley

Long

Bottom

" While the scars of the monstrous Civil War still remain, the wounds have closed since 1865, in large part, because of the civility of Grant and Lee. "

" When terrorists blew up the Marine barracks in Lebanon, Reagan was frustrated and furious, as Bush was after 9/11. But he didn't stick us in a war in the Middle East with no exit. "

Douglas Brinkley

Exit

Middle

" To Armstrong, constantly speaking about 'Apollo 11' only diminished the magic. That's why he worked overtime to avoid notice, living a quiet life in Indian Hill, Ohio. "

" The superhighway of celebrity and showmanship is filled with debris. "

" How one deals with the death of a loved one is a highly personalized affair. Some people weep for days; others take a hike in the woods or count rosary beads. "

" Some presidents, such as Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy, are political sailors - they tack with the wind, reaching difficult policy objectives through bipartisan maneuvering and pulse-taking. "

" Now I'm the father of three children; I'm not able to go live on a bus and do semesters around the country like I did when I was young. "

" What makes 'American Pie' so unusual is that it isn't a relic from the counterculture but a talisman, which, like a sacred river, keeps bringing joy to listeners everywhere. When 'American Pie' suddenly is played on a jukebox or radio, it's almost impossible not to sing along. "

" I'm not a partisan. "

Douglas Brinkley

Partisan

" With the newspapers cheering, Lieutenant Colonel Roosevelt chose a top-notch regiment of more than 1,250 men. They were first called Teddy's Texas Tarantulas and went through three or four other monikers until Roosevelt's Rough Riders stuck. "

" The myth-making about Appomattox started from the moment Lee left the courthouse on his horse to travel to Richmond. "

" Her continuity - you know, if you connect Harriet Tubman, who died in 1913, to Rosa Parks, born in 1913, you get this extraordinary spectrum of the African-American experience. "

" If you're a Kennedy and you go to Italy or you go to Argentina, you're treated as royalty. And in the United States, we're endlessly fascinated by the family. "

Douglas Brinkley

You

Family

" Ever since Willie Nelson brought rednecks into an alliance with hippies back in the psychedelic '70s, Austin has milked its quirky libertarian spirit for a worldwide bonanza of free publicity. "

" Stubbornness is a positive quality of presidential leadership - if you're right about what you're stubborn about. "

" Unfortunately, one of the biggest misperceptions the American public harbors is that Katrina was a week-long catastrophe. In truth, it's better to view it as an era. "

" John Kerry had a very vivid imagination as a young person. I mean, he actually did go and take his bicycle from Norway to go camp in Sherwood Forest to be around the ghost of Robin Hood. "

" Demeanor-wise, Reagan was a conservative, but a pragmatic conservative, and he found silver linings in things. He liked to be a mediator. He didn't like to have enemies around him. "

Douglas Brinkley

Enemies

Conservative

" John Kerry can be absolutely ruthless. I would not want to be on his enemies list when he's ready to go after you. "

Douglas Brinkley

Ready

You

" Nobody has trusted the Iranian government from day one, but the idea of just refusing to have any kind of talks is dangerous in the extreme. Every administration says at least that we're trying to have talks between Israel and Palestine and solve the Middle East peace problem. "

" One thing 'not right' on the 50th anniversary of the Selma marches is the sad fact that the Edmund Pettus Bridge hasn't been renamed the John Lewis Bridge. "

" I was only 8 years old on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong, 38-year-old commander of 'Apollo 11,' descended the cramped lunar module Eagle's ladder with hefty backpack and bulky spacesuit to become the first human on the moon. "

" Having recorded his first album, 'Tapestry,' in 1969, in Berkeley, California, during the student riots, McLean, a native New Yorker, became a kind of weather vane for what he called the 'generation lost in space.' "

" Richard Kerry not only was a pilot in World War II, but was a civil servant. He did not come from money. "

" In Austin, the eco-capital of Texas, residents tend to favor native plants and wildflowers to the sculpted lawns of the Palm Springs variety. "

" President Abraham Lincoln never lost his ardor for the United States to remain united during the Civil War. "

" In 2012, the city of Austin erected an eight-foot-tall bronze statue of Willie Nelson in the heart of the business district. Schoolchildren, churchgoers, tourists, slackers, conventioneers, tech geeks - everybody, it seems - now congregate around this ponytailed shrine to outlaw country. "

" The answer to New Orleans's levee woes is painfully obvious: money and willpower. "

" One of the things I learned in editing 'The Reagan Diaries' is to never say what Reagan would do, because he surprised people. "